Ad-hoc observations on politics, civil liberty, economics and life in general

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…it lost it a lot earlier than that. It lost it in 2010 – not by its conduct in what was always likely to be a disastrous election, but in its reaction to that election. It lost it through cowardice, through short-termism, and through what must have felt like political expediency at the time. It lost it by failing to challenge the Tory (and to an extent Lib Dem and UKIP) attempts to rewrite history, and to set a new agenda. It lost it by failing to stand up for itself, by failing to stand up for exactly those people that Labour was created to support and protect. It lost it by failing to stand up for the truth – and by failing to challenge a whole range of myths.

The first of those myths is the most obvious – the cause and nature of the economic crisis. Labour didn’t cause…

One interpretation of the Thornberry tweet is that Labour not only have no understanding of voters in general, but more significantly have an existence (and policies that flow from that mind set) rooted in a past long gone.

As an aside, ThornberryGate was dealt with swiftly and decisively by Ed Miliband. Shit happens but how you deal with it is more important.

My long, and meandering road back to Labour, a party I have supported since my teenage years is almost complete, I just need to seal the event with 4 crosses on May 7th next year. Many a slip twixt, etc. but I should get there.

I left Labour as a result of the vote, on 18th March 2003, rubber-stamping Blair’s vanity project, the senseless invasion of ‘Narnia’ (apparently its bad form to mention <*redacted*> , the name of the target country. It marks one out as a closet Green and deeply suspect; so one of my first lessons on the long road back was ‘don’t mention the war’).

The current Labour Party policy on meeting the challenges and problems presented by the growing private rental market contains an over emphasis on rent caps with little mention of the importance of introducing a tax framework that will incentivise sound management of private rental units. Continue reading →